Vesna McMaster – Snow; or, The Procrastinator’s Lament

We don’t know where we are. Something was chasing. Is chasing, but in all this white it will be chasing forever.

Cold without end. Immobility creeps in at the fingertips, crawls out of the eyes. Ice crystals branch out from pulmonary arteries. Numbness is a force that radiates from us. All is still, even the endless whirling flakes, in their ceaseless quest, static.

The Inferno’s ninth circle is a frozen lake. Oh, we know. Traitors gnawing on each other’s heads - of no consequence, our thoughts are only snow. Muffled, dead, immobile. Better than the memory - ducking, defensive, crying for help. Numbed into a freezing eddy, beyond recounting past woes in shivering repetition. We draw the snow-blanket around our shoulders, and the memory fades.